Last week, Joe Hall, an American living in Beirut who had been looking for a house to rent in Achrafieh, called me outraged.
 
“I looked at an old apartment in a beautiful old building in Achrafieh. The landlord wants $50,000 per year,” he said. “It has no generator, no air conditioning, no hot water – nothing. And it’s filthy.  He wants to rent it to a restaurant or tear down the building. I almost screamed.”
 
The same day, Hall sent me the picture of a beautiful old house in Saifi facing the Saifi restaurant building on Charles Helou Street. The building will soon be demolished.
 
“The house was sold to us by the previous landlords who had no money to restore or destroy it. Keeping the houses was too costly for them,” said N.B., whose family now owns the building. “We bought it since we had land behind it.”
                                  
Jamil, a 65 year-old homeowner in Gemmayzeh added, “Why would someone keep the house? It’s a burden and it does not bring money. I would not waste a penny on it. If the government cares about preserving old houses, then let them pay!”
 
Attracted by the high real estate prices, landlords are selling their land or destroying old houses so that investors fork over money to build towers. Since the government has done little to help landlords who may want to renovate and preserve old structures, the marker demand for such buildings is low. Moreover, these properties usually face sewage and parking problems.  Inheritance laws in Lebanon are cumbersome, and dividing property between multiple owners is a byzantine process. 
 
Asked why they would destroy the Saifi building, N.B. said, “Look at the building; it’s very frail and it can fall down at any time. The smallest earthquake would destroy it, so we can’t keep it.”
 
Joseph Mouawad, chairman and general manager of Mouawad Investment Group, a major real estate developer in Lebanon, is straightforward about who is responsible for maintaining Beirut’s architectural heritage. “The preservation of old houses is the business of the Archeological Department at the Ministry of Culture; we as developers cannot be blamed.”
 
When asked about the destruction of the old Khan in Gemmayzeh, Mouawad added, “The municipality did not object, the khan was never listed as a historical site, so developers had a green light.”
 
Investors and real estate developers say their business is vital to the Lebanese economy.
 
“The project we are building would help create job opportunities for the young Lebanese. There is nothing wrong in what we are doing,” said N.B.
 
Even so, developers and investors often have powerful connections and can put considerable pressure on local municipalities, in some cases managing to bypass the law.
“The municipality of Beirut is always ceding to political pressure,” said Samir Skaff, secretary of the Green Party Lebanon.
 
The only law in Lebanon that preserves old houses was passed in 1933. It basically protects houses built before 1700, although younger mansions can still be added by the government to the list.
 
In 1993, the High Council of Urbanism called a group of architects to study old buildings and come up with a “heritage list” of structures that should be protected. At that time, they found 1,016 houses.
 
“The list was down to around 520 buildings by 1997, barely representing 2.5 % of the total number of buildings in Beirut,” said Skaff. Then in 1999 the list was down again to 220 buildings. Mona Hallak, who sits on the board of the Association for The Protection of Natural sites and Old Buildings, contended that the listing made things even worse by categorizing the buildings into A, B, C , D and E.
 
“A refers to buildings in good shape and E to structures in very bad condition,” she said. “This listing infers that only buildings in categories A, B and C will be preserved, whereas the ones in D and E can be destroyed.”

Even buildings that are officially protected, however, have been demolished. Hallak said that 22 buildings in categories B and C have already been razed.
 
“The destruction goes even further,” said Skaff. “They are not only destroying houses but gardens, trees and green spaces. The beautiful gardens of the famous Sursock Villa are now gone and soon a tower will replace the green field. The Sioufi and Sanayeh Gardens will also soon disappear.”
 
In 2007, Tarek Mitri, the minister of culture at the time, proposed a law that would encourage homeowners to preserve their houses by giving them financial incentives like tax exemptions and free registration fees. The Council of Ministers passed the law, and it was supposed to be voted on by parliament, but that never happened.

The main argument of both developers and homeowners is monetary. Homeowners lack the financial means, and investors need profit and claim to be creating economic growth. Add to that outdated laws, lack of awareness, corruption and the absence of rationalized urban planning, and you have a very perilous setting for older buildings.
 
But it should be asked whether tourists will come to Beirut to visit concrete towers and skyscrapers.

The destruction of Beirut’s old houses is an economic loss as well as a cultural one. When you destroy an ancient Lebanese mansion, you destroy part of the country’s history and culture, a whole heritage.